Owosso Motor Car Company

 

The Litestar or Pulse autocycles were considered Ground Cruising Recreational Vehicles (GCRV). Founder David Vaughn worked with the supplier of its bodies, Tomorrow Corp., but the two companies severed ties over numerous disagreements. Vaughn then changed the Litestar name to Pulse in 1985. The fiberglass body was designed to look like an aircraft with tandem seating. Including its rear-mounted motorcycle engine, the Pulse weighed in at about 1,000 lbs and considered by the DMV to be motorcycles. 

Technically a two-wheeled motorcycle, the Litestar featured two additional outrigger wheels under its "wings" that provided balance when standing still or in a turn. Though compliant with US federal regulations as a motorcycle, various states took issue with the Litestar. Initially, they had no reverse gear and there were some quality issues. Twenty-seven states were willing to license the vehicle. The Owosso, Michigan company went out of business in 1990 and in its five-year run, manufactured 347 autocycles. A number appear today at various airshows or classic motorcycle venues.

Photo: September 3, 2022. Marion, Indiana

Mighty Mac

 

The Mackinac Bridge, spanning the Straits of Mackinac opened in 1957 and remains the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western Hemisphere. The 26,372-foot-long bridge is familiarly known as "Big Mac" and "Mighty Mac." Spanning the Straits of Mackinac, connecting the Upper and Lower peninsulas of  Michigan, the bridge is part of Interstate 75. 

The dedication of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 gave Mackinac Bridge backers encouragement. A reprinted story from the Grand Traverse Herald pointed out that the experiment to provide year-round service across the Straits by ferry boat had failed. If a great east-west route were ever to be established through Michigan, a bridge or tunnel would be required. After many decades, the five-mile bridge, including approaches, did not officially begin until 1954. Designed by the engineer, Dr. David B. Steinman, the nearly 26 million agreement to build led to the mobilization of the largest bridge construction fleet ever assembled. Prior to the bridge, traffic could be backed up nearly 16 miles waiting for one of nine automobile ferries to carry them across the straits. 

Note: The Algonquian peoples living in the straits area prior to the arrival of Europeans in the 17th century, called this region Michilimackinac, which is widely understood to mean the Great Turtle. This is thought to refer to the shape of what is now called Mackinac (pronounced MAK-in-aw) Island.

The First Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak

 

On this day in 1920, at least 37 tornadoes, the majority significant F3, F4s, took place across northern, Indiana, western Ohio, southern Michigan and southeast Illinois on the first Palm Sunday weather disaster. The more famous 1965 outbreak, the second on a Palm Sunday, was even more deadly. The 1920 tornadoes killed over 380 and at least 1,215 were injured. Many were caught off-guard as the storms moved northeast at speeds over sixty miles per hour. Most of the fatalities occurred in Georgia (201), Indiana (56), and Ohio (55). 

Charts and photos for 1920 and 1965 tornado outbreaks.

Drought, Heat and Wind Create Dust

 

On this day in 1936, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin set a state record high temperature of 114°F. Across Lake Michigan in Mio, Michigan, they also set a state record of 112°F. The record temperatures occurred during the "Dust Bowl" drought which came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939-40, bringing some of the hottest summers on record to the US, especially across the Upper Midwest and the Great Lake States. The periodic severe dust storms in the Plains greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture due to poor farming management techniques, plowing every acre available. Without the vegetation and soil moisture, the region acted as a furnace taking on desert-like qualities and provided the most dramatic photography to chronicle the period. Congress occasionally has its relevance. They passed Public Law 74-46 in 1935, recognizing that “the wastage of soil and moisture resources on farm, grazing, and forest lands…is a menace to the national welfare.” This law established the Soil Conservation Service, now USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Body by Fisher

 

"Pound for pound -- what do you find?" is the headline accompanying this 1949 illustration. Do all sorts of pounding, thumping and slamming to discover the solidity of steel. I guess. The Fisher Body Corporation was a Detroit, Michigan automobile coachbuilder founded by the Fisher brothers in 1908 but its beginnings trace back to a horse-drawn carriage shop in Norwalk, Ohio, in the late 1800s. Since 1919 a division of General Motors, it was dissolved to form other GM divisions in 1984. Noted for many innovations, Fisher Body designed slanted windshields to reduce glare in 1930, dual windshield wipers in 1936 and produced GM's first airbag in 1974. The name and its iconic "Body by Fisher" logo were well known to the public, as GM vehicles displayed the emblem on their door sill plates until the mid-1990s.

The Cutting Edge of Power Mowers

 

REO built the first lightweight personal power lawnmower but the engine was not quite so powerful as this advertisement suggests. REO ran a series of humorously illustrated advertisements suggesting mowing was fun for everyone at any age. One's dad or grandfather may have been the proud owner of these first-generation, self-propelled mowers. 

REO got its name from the initials of Ransom Eli Olds, involved in many enterprises in and around Lansing, Michigan until his death in 1950. Reo Motors became well-known for its trucks, supplying many trucks and engines during World War II. Reo started the Lawn Mower Division in 1946 with the common push-type reel mower and slapped an engine on top to create a power mower. But by the early 1950s, the mower industry was rapidly changing to the rotary-blade mower, which was much cheaper to produce and easier to operate than the reel-type unit which Reo continued to sell, hurting sales for the next few years. Reo eventually marketed a rotary mower, but their design was a mechanical disaster. In 1954 Reo sold their lawnmower division to Motor Wheel Corporation of Lansing, and continued the Reo line. But the "writing was on the wall" and Motor Wheel sold their entire Reo line to Wheel Horse Products in South Bend, Indiana in 1963. Wheel Horse continued the Reo line for several years before dropping the Reo name.

Gibson Refrigerator Company

 

Gibson has been a pioneer in the refrigeration industry. Some of their innovations are a frost-proof feature, built-in ice and water dispenser on the refrigerator door and adjustable or removable shelving units. A brand synonymous with durability, quality and long-lasting performance. The above illustration is from 1949.

Founded in 1877 in Belding, Michigan by Joshua Hall, the Belding-Hall Company sold wood chests made by skilled Danish craftsmen to house blocks of ice as "ice-boxes." The company was purchased by Frank Gibson, a competing manufacturer of "ice refrigerators" at the turn of the Twentieth Century, and it became the largest in the industry. By 1931 the company began making electric refrigerators and eventually moving its headquarters to Greenville, Michigan. In 1956, Hupp Corporation acquired Gibson. In 1967 Hupp merged with White Consolidated Industries. Gibson is now owned by Electrolux Group and marketed today under the familiar Frigidaire brand.

An Amber Caution Zone

 

A Detroit, Michigan traffic officer, William Potts, created the three-color, four-way traffic signal in 1920 which was first installed at Woodward Avenue and Fort Street in Detroit, Michigan. It became the standard by the mid-1930s. The prior red and green-only signals resulted in numerous fender-benders: when the signal turned green, vehicles would immediately proceed through the intersection, expecting others to have stopped before crossing into the intersection. The middle amber/yellow signal allowed for a "caution zone" to proceed through the intersection if one could not safely stop when the signal turned red. Likewise, vehicles already stopped would need to wait until they received their green light to proceed. The design was adopted in future traffic light designs across the world. Today there are well over 310,000 traffic signals in the US alone. 

Note: The first traffic lights were invented in London in the 1860s, but they were not effective. Adapted from the railroad signal system, only red gas lights were used at night to signal stops, and green gas lights during the daytime. The life of the first traffic light signal was short-lived when a gas leak caused one of the signals to explode not long after being installed. It took the United States nearly forty years to adopt the system but with higher safety standards.